Scott Webb (Host): At face value, you might be inclined to believe that boredom, loneliness, and guilt are generally not things that most of us want to experience. But my guest today is here to explain the psychological benefits that many of us can have when we embrace boredom, loneliness, and guilt and use our time spent with those feelings productively. And I'm pleased to be joined today by Chris Bradshaw. He's a specialty therapist with Sierra Tucson.

Welcome to My Miracle Radio, a podcast by Sierra Tucson Alumni Relations. I'm Scott Webb. Chris, it's so nice to be on with you today. I was telling you that, in terms of the topic, boredom, loneliness, and guilt, and is there potential value in those things? I was thinking to myself, you know, sort of like, "Well, no, boredom, loneliness, guilt, those aren't good things." But I'm going to guess, and great to have you and your expertise here today, that there actually can be some real value, some potential value.

So, I want to ask you, why do we as humans experience these challenging psychological states or experiences such as boredom, loneliness, and guilt?

Chris Bradshaw: Yeah, it's good to be here again with you, Scott. And what is more fun than talking about boredom? That's what I always say. It's a fun topic, right? And there's lots of ways of going about talking about why we have them. I guess I'd like to start with maybe a little bit of a less familiar way of talking about them. So, I guess I'll throw it out there that without boredom, we can't have meaning and meaningfulness. Without guilt, there's no hope. And without loneliness, there's no love. I'm just going to throw that out there as an initial foray into this, and I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

Host: Yeah, I've actually thought a lot about this when I saw we were going to talk about boredom and loneliness and guilt. And I was like, "Well, I don't want any of those things." And I started to feel like, okay, well, we as humans, of course, experience these things, whether we want to or not, and what can that mean ultimately? So, if you "suffer" or experience boredom, then when you're not bored, when you're not, you know, experiencing boredom, what could that mean? Like, how exciting or amazing could, you know, the opposite of boredom or non-boredom be, and learning to be able to balance that and say, "Okay, I know what boredom feels like, and now I am really looking forward to something that won't bore me or isn't boredom." So yeah, I am certainly not an expert here, but I did give some thought to this about what could be the value in experiencing boredom, loneliness, guilt, and what would that mean for us? And that's about as far as I got, Chris.

Chris Bradshaw: Yeah, I resonate with that. I think that on one level, they could all help you appreciate the opposite of them more. And we can talk about from an evolutionary perspective and evolutionary psychology why we experience those things, and I'm sure we'll touch on that. It's a little more familiar, so I don't want to go into that right away. And I should give the caveat that all of these experiences can be dangerous. And if folks are struggling and these experiences are too terrifying, I definitely wouldn't recommend trying to cultivate them or anything. I think the ability to be with those experiences a bit can be done in therapy and different traumas that we go through in life can cause us to be stuck in these experiences for various reasons and opposite could make us really terrified and unable to be with them. So, I think that we should kind of caveat with that.

I think as a society as a whole, we overly pathologize these experiences sometimes though. And I think that there's dangers to that as well. So, I'll take them kind of one by one here, let's talk about guilt and hope. So, I practice primarily existential and humanistic psychology, and it's helped me a lot in my life. And the existentialists have an interesting take on guilt and hope.

So, when we love somebody, and they're experiencing guilt, the temptation is to really quickly try to help them get out of it. And I think we all know folks and maybe we are folks who tend to feel guilty a lot and maybe too often, and we can talk about that in a minute, but there's a real danger in trying to help someone escape their guilt too quickly. And of that could be that we have a certain amount of hope as human beings that we can exercise some control in our life, that we can become fully human, that we can self-actualize, that we can live according to our values. There's things that really matter to us. There's people and ideas that really matter to us, and we really want to live.

And when we don't do that, or when we step off of our path, you could say we feel something. Something stops us, or something slows us down, or we have some type of regret, or some type of remorse, something that you might call guilt. And the whole reason we have that guilt, according to the existentialists, and this has helped me in my path, is because we have some hope in our life, for our life, and for ourselves, and for the world, right? And they kind of go together. And I think that the problem that I've seen in myself, and I've seen in a lot of folks in therapy is that, for one thing, we end up feeling guilty because of impossible standards that we've set for ourselves, or that we've internalized from society. And that can sometimes be a trauma response.

One of the ways of coping with trauma is to become a perfectionist, and a perfectionist is pretty much guaranteed to feel guilty all the time because you can't be perfect, right? I think it's important to kind of try to separate what we might call a more neurotic guilt from an existential guilt in the sense of when we feel guilty, a useful thing to ask ourselves is, "Do I feel guilty because of some impossible standard that I've set or someone else has set for me? Or do I feel guilty for something that's pretty deep within myself?" And a lot of times when we feel guilt, all of these experiences that we're talking about today, when we feel them, the knee-jerk reaction for a lot of folks is to have a very disempowering, harsh, self-critical narrative around it, so, "I'm feeling guilt because of something wrong with me, because I'm weak, I'm pathetic, I'm this, I'm that, I'm not smart enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm not this, I made a mistake, I was whatever." And where I think the empowering piece can come in is, "Oh, wait a minute, maybe I feel guilt because I have hope for myself. And because I have hope for myself, that means when I slip, I feel something. And where I go with that and the narrative I create around that, I have some say in that, where that goes."

So, that's kind of where I'm heading with this, and it's the same thing with boredom. I think we're at a kind of a very exciting place in society with all the technology and stimulation and ideas and art and everything, and we're also at a kind of a dangerous place in the sense of boredom has almost become a grave sin, in terms of people often feel very entitled in the sense that they should never have to experience any boredom.

I believe that our goal as adults shouldn't only be to be entertained and to listen to what we want to listen to and to hear what we want to hear. I think we should also be working on cultivating a certain amount of gravitas and presence and wisdom. And I think that to cultivate those things, we have to be able to handle what we might call boredom, meaning someone's not saying the type of thing that we like to hear. Someone's not saying what we find interesting or I'm not stimulated. What I see a lot of times is folks think that they can't handle that or that they shouldn't have to handle that. It's more understandable with a child. But I think for adults, I think that when we can slow down and stay with the boredom a little bit, a lot of deeper meanings can start coming in. That's a lot of me talking. I want to pause there, but I wanted to give you kind of a sense of where I'm headed.

Host: Yeah. I think you're so right. You mentioned kids and countless times my kids would say to me when they were little, "I'm so bored." You know, they couldn't wait for summer and then summer got here and then two days later, "I'm so bored." And I said, you should have grown up in the '70s like I did. I could show you some real boredom. I mean, real, real profound boredom without all these things and these magic things, these thousand-dollar devices in your hands to stimulate you. And it's so interesting that I'm sort of focused on that. You mentioned like entitlement that we're-- You know, "I'm so amazing. I should never be bored." Well, you know, we're all human too, and humans will suffer boredom, right?

Chris Bradshaw: Right. Yeah. Sometimes we experience-- you know, you're sitting the doctor's office and you don't like any of the magazines they have. We go to our phone. But let's say you left your phone at home or something.

Host: Or your phone's dead. You know, the dreaded dead phone.

Chris Bradshaw: You don't have a plug, whatever. So, you sit in the doctor's office. You don't like any of the magazines. You're sitting there. Most of the time, people would start thinking or start reflecting about something. And so, I think moments of boredom can be opportunities to kind of check in with ourselves. What really matters to me in life, who and what do I love, notice the passage of time. You know, we don't have an unlimited amount of time to live, right?

So, I think, sometimes we're scared of boredom, because there can be some real existential realities that settle in when you're bored. And I think that those do need to be encountered. And I've heard from a lot of clients that it gets pretty terrifying for them when they don't have anything to do and some of that can be trauma and other issues. And a lot of people relapse on substances because of boredom. So, I purposely picked these things to talk about because I feel like they can be dangerous. A lot of people relapse because of them. And I think that the society gives us really misguided ideas about them. And I think that it doesn't get talked about how they could actually enhance our life to be able to deal with them.

So, one of the ones we haven't talked about yet is loneliness. And I know the Surgeon General did a big report on loneliness in 2023 and talked about an epidemic of loneliness, and it's been linked to physical health issues and all kinds of things. And it doesn't have really much to do with how much you're alone, because some people can spend a lot of time alone and not be lonely. And some people can spend a lot of time with other people and be even more lonely when they're with people. But loneliness is really, you're longing for more connection than you have. So, the knee-jerk response, which is probably a good one overall, is seek connections, seek more meaningful connection. Get out. Connect with people. The issue with that is connecting with people can be dangerous and, you know, it can be rewarding and also dangerous. And also, how are we connecting with people?

When I take a step back and when I think of what's a potential benefit of loneliness, I think that people that have experienced loneliness can appreciate love and connection even more, like kind of what you were saying when we started off, they can help you appreciate it. If you're constantly killing your loneliness with the TV and the technology or whatever, you might end up taking for granted some of the relationships in your life, or ignoring them. I mean, that's the classic thing of the man comes home from work and watches TV and ignores his wife, right? That's like from the '50s or '60s,

Host: And '70s. Yeah, that happened in the '70s too.

Chris Bradshaw: Yeah, in the 70s, yeah.

Host: Yeah.

Chris Bradshaw: And maybe today, you know, maybe even kids are taking their parents for granted, because the kid just wants to be on their device. And one day, their parent's going to be dead.

Host: Unfortunately. Yes. Yeah, right. I think I've even said this out loud. "You're going to miss me someday. You won't have dad to kick around anymore."

Chris Bradshaw: Right, right. Yeah. So, that is one way. I think also loneliness though, when I think of the definition of loneliness is longing for more connection than what we have, and you take a step back and look at the polarization in society and the conflict and the trauma. Part of me thinks, why wouldn't we long for more connection than we have when we're obviously having a lot of problems connecting with each other in a deep way? You see it even in work meetings. When someone's talking and some people don't like what they're saying, they get on their phone right away. You see an inability to kind of connect with people you disagree with, to connect with people you find boring or whatever, or just to connect beyond a soundbite in general. And so, part of me thinks, "Well, maybe we should be lonely, because we should be longing for something more than we're doing."

So, I think that, you know, as a therapist, I have to be careful though, because again, it's definitely not safe for everybody to be experiencing these things. And you can get help, and if you know that it's not safe for you, don't do it. But I dare say that there's a lot of us that could handle these experiences a little bit more and a little bit better. And I do think we should challenge ourselves to do that.

Host: Yeah. Well, as you're saying here, sort of pointing to, you know, some of the potential dangers, right? For some of us, loneliness could lead to love and embracing love or connections and things like that. But for others, you know, loneliness could mean spiraling downward and relapse and some of the dangers. The headline here today was the potential value of some of these things. Maybe we can contrast the downside, the dangers, perhaps, with the potential value. Like, what good really comes from this? When these are places that people are okay to be, of course, that caveat you mentioned, what would be the best outcomes or positive outcomes? What would you want for folks if they're in that place, you know, and they're able to get out of it or contrast it with the opposite of it, what's the hope for them?

Chris Bradshaw: The potential value of being able to be a bit more present with boredom, not try to escape it right away, not overly resent it right away, is that it can be a portal to getting more in touch with your deeper humanity. Because at the end of the day, do we want on our gravestone, like, "He stayed entertained"?

Host: He was never bored. He never suffered moments of boredom.

Chris Bradshaw: Right. I mean, when we think of a wise older person, is it someone that just has to pick up their little toy every time they get bored? Or Is it someone that has gravitas? You know, that might sound harsh to say. Now, I've been someone that picks up my device when I get bored, so I'm not sitting here on my high horse or anything. But I think boredom can help us slow down, be quiet, look within ourselves, and access something deeper. If we're talking to someone that we find boring, we can be like a child and cry that we're bored, or we could sink into something deeper and connect with them deeper than whatever they're talking about. Connect with them human to human. So, I think that boredom can be something that's telling us you're going to have to go deeper. To be able to find this moment interesting, you're going to have to go beyond the need to be entertained.

Host: Yeah. You're going to have to go to that next level. I think, Chris, it's one of the things I love about being an adult. Granted, I'm on the back nine, if you will. But I do appreciate, because just the concepts we're talking about today, these feelings, emotions, these places people can go, like boredom, there's no way when I was my son's age, who he just turned 21, there's no way I had any understanding or ability to say, "Okay, I'm bored. And I don't want to be bored and I don't want to listen to this person anymore. So, I'm out of here." Like, that's absolutely what I would have done. Now, as an adult, you know, much older than my son, I can say exactly what you're saying. I can think, "All right, I need to go next level here. I can't get out of this, and maybe I shouldn't get out of this. you say, maybe I need to challenge myself, right?

Chris Bradshaw: Right. I think it's an opportunity to, first, ask ourselves, should I be feeling guilty about this? And this gets complicated and there's value systems and it's a useful mechanism. Guilt is a useful mechanism to stop us. If we didn't have guilt, why would we ever course correct in a deep and meaningful way? I mean, these are all experiences that there's folks that will tell you to be positive and never experience these things, but we know that's not realistic. And I don't think it would even be good.

So, I think it can stop you and slow you down and, get you back in touch with your hope for how you want to be in the world. So, it can be a great gift. Here's what I really think is that a healthy relationship with loneliness can add a poignancy to our love with other people. Because the reality is everybody we love is going to die and we're going to die. And this doesn't last forever and nobody gets out alive. And there's going to be times where we let ourselves down, we let other people down. No human being can perfectly satisfy us permanently, always. And there's a poignancy to living, and that can help us appreciate it more. So, it's not that, "Everybody's going to die, so what's the point?" A lot of times existential psychology gets confused as nihilism, but it's really the opposite. It's like, because it's finite, we really do need to relish it. And we really need to not take it for granted. And we all know that we don't want to be on our deathbed with too many regrets. So, there's a poignancy in that, and it's beautiful and painful at the same time. So, I think that, you know, a lot of great art comes from people that were experiencing loneliness.

Host: For sure. Yeah, when you and I were just kind of chatting before we got rolling here today, I was just saying to you, you know, that I enjoy podcasts like this because it's such human stuff. I mean, yeah, you're a professional, you're a therapist, but you're also a human. And I have no particular expertise other than I'm a human and I have been bored before. I have been lonely. As you say, you can feel lonely in a room full of people. And it's hard and sometimes beautiful all at once. And we've all known people who didn't suffer guilt, who never said the word, "I'm sorry," right? And that maybe is a different podcast about folks who just don't have the capacity to suffer guilt. And if they can't suffer guilt, well, then they can't look for hope, right?

Chris Bradshaw: Yeah. Yes. That's really well said. And I think, yeah, I can tell that you're someone that's really curious and experienced and has explored a lot of life.

Host: I spent a lot of time in my head, Chris. You know, I have a lot of time talking to experts here like yourself. While you're talking, I'm thinking about me and my life. And these are some heavy concepts we're talking about here today and could be good, could be bad, sometimes both.

Chris Bradshaw: I guess, something I feel like I should kind of add to this on my end to feel kind of like I'm being responsible about it is, I mean, we already talked about how these can be dangerous. And yet, I also think it can be dangerous how sometimes we get messages that these things are always bad. And I think the evolutionary psychology piece and the nervous system pieces about it are important, but I also think we miss some of the poetry and the art that can be in these experiences, which I think human beings also need. I feel like we could do both where we can work to create a society where people aren't so lonely. The Surgeon General's report is a good place to start with that. And we can do trauma therapies to get at the root of these things and there's Medicaid, there's all these pieces. And then, there is also taking some of our power back and thinking about how could this experience of guilt enhance my life if I work with it? And same with loneliness and boredom.

And if folks are interested, there's a couple of reading recommendations I could give of Rollo May, R-O-L-L-O M-A-Y, is a great existential psychologist that's written a lot about these types of things. And also, Kirk Schneider is another, he has a book out called Life-Enhancing Anxiety. So, he's a great existential psychologist, and he talks in that book, kind of along the same lines, but about anxiety, so ways that anxiety could actually enhance our life if it's worked with in certain ways. So, I just kind of wanted to put that out there because I know these are difficult ones.

Host: Yeah. You know, I was going to finish up here by just saying there's just so much food for thought. I have so many things swirling around in my head. I'm going to have a great day thinking about these things and trying to process them and really just a lot of sort of self-reflection, I think, you've caused in me today, which I appreciate. I appreciate the free session. Sierra Tucson can bill me of course. But I really appreciate this, Chris. This is, as I said, you know, kind of heavy stuff and sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes both, and a lot to take in. We probably only scratched the surface. So, I'm glad that you gave folks some resources there. I just want to thank you for your time. Hopefully, we'll speak again in the future. Thanks so much.

Chris Bradshaw: Thank you, Scott. I enjoyed it.

Host: This has been My Miracle Radio by Sierra Tucson Alumni Relations. For more information, please visit sierratucson.com. I'm Scott Webb. Thanks for listening.